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KDDI to Study Qualcomm's MediaFlo

KDDI will establish a planning firm to study the potential of alternate mobile TV broadcasting business opportunities with Qualcomm Japan, according to press release posted today. The joint venture, headed by President and Representative Director Masuda Kazuhiko, will launch on 27 December with 10 employees. Media Flow Japan, will be capitalized at 10 million yen, of which 80 percent will be put up by KDDI and 20 percent by Qualcomm. The joint venture will ask the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry for a frequency assignment after considering the profitability and service contents of the new business, as well as targeting a possible start date in late 2006.

Bluetooth Cell-Phone Santa Brings Seasons Greetings!

Bluetooth Cell-Phone Santa Brings Seasons Greetings!Here’s a fun web video for everyone to enjoy from all of us here at Wireless Watch Japan! We stopped by KDDI’s Designing Studio in Harajuku yesterday afternoon with our long list of groovy gadgets we wanna have for Christmas and to sit on their robot Santa’s knee. As it turns out, maybe we’re getting a bit too big for that — but it was fun anyway! Dressed up for the holidays, this robo Santa-san unit made a splash during the 2005 International Robot Exhibition held recently at Tokyo BigSite. According to Designing Studio’s Manager Natsuko Kimura, the robo Santa was created by KDDI’s partner company I Bee K.K., which develops products based on Bluetooth technology. While we were there, it seemed like a good idea to send best wishes to our faithful WWJ visitors, recorded from under KDDI’s three-story tall Christmas tree.

ITunes Japan Adds Another Label

Apple Computer Inc.’s iTunes Music Store Japan will be gaining more content from Wednesday with the addition of songs from Victor Entertainment Inc. The recording label, which is affiliated with Victor Co. of Japan Ltd. (JVC), will add 18 albums totalling 209 tracks to Apple’s online music distribution service, it said. The tracks cover mainly Japanese domestic artists.

Major Mobile Commerce Trials Announced

Major Mobile Commerce Trials AnnouncedA group of major m-commerce companies announced a large-scale U.S. trial last week to include contactless payment, mobile content and premium arena services at Philips Arena in Atlanta, Georgia. The companies claim the trial will be the first large-scale test of next-generation mobile-phone applications in North America. The grouping includes Chase, Cingular Wireless, Nokia, Philips, Visa USA and others. The contactless payment functionality will be based on Near Field Communication (NFC) technology first developed by Sony and Philips. Other NFC trials are underway in Germany and France.

Wireless Watchers will know that the Sony/Philips NFC technology is also powering the super-successful “FeliCa”-branded mobile contactless payment services in Japan and has been adopted by NTT DoCoMo, KDDI and Vodafone as the de facto market standard for m-commerce, e-wallets, transportation and other peer-to-peer data transfer services. Sony first deployed NFC on the Octopus card in Hong Kong in 1997 and rolled their mobile handset trial ran in Japan in December 2003 — see WWJ video here. Today, over 7 million FeliCa-enabled phones have already been sold by DoCoMo alone.

One might think the two-year jump on deployment and commercial experience, not to mention brand equity, in Japan would motivate Sony to transplant an obvious success story from Tokyo to markets elsewhere. Instead, it looks like the wheel is being reinvented all over again.

DoCoMo to Buy Stake in Fuji TV

Fuji Television Network Inc., Japan’s biggest broadcaster, said it’s in talks to sell a stake to NTT DoCoMo Inc. Tokyo-based Fuji confirmed the negotiations in a statement to the Tokyo Stock Exchange, following a Nihon Keizai newspaper report saying DoCoMo is in talks to buy a 3 percent stake in the broadcaster for about 20 billion yen ($171 million). Fuji Television may sell treasury stock to DoCoMo, the newspaper reported, without saying who provided the information.

Vodafone Releases 804SH Wallet-Phone

Vodafone K.K. announced today that it will commence sales of the Vodafone 804SH [ .jpg image ], a new 3G handset by Sharp, on 22 December 2005 in the Chugoku and Shikoku regions, and all other regions on 17 January 2006. The 804SH has a new contrasting design with the upper and under body of the handset featuring “different forms and material feel”. The 804SH also features ‘Custom Screens’ for menu screen icon and wallpaper customisation, allowing customers to express their individuality from the display screen. This is the carriers second Osaifu-Keitai (mobile wallet) handset with embedded IC-chip to support Vodafone live! FeliCa and their first 3G phone with the Motion Control Sensor that responds to movements.

Smallest VCXO for Mobile Handsets

Epson Toyocom Corp. announced that it will release a new series of voltage-controlled X’tal (crystal) oscillators (VCXO) that support mobile handsets capable of receiving terrestrial digital TV broadcasts. The VG-4231CE Series will be among the smallest-footprint crystal solutions in the industry yet will offer frequency control characteristics equivalent to their predecessors. This will allow them to meet the ongoing demand for miniaturization while also easily handling the complicated timing of high-quality image recording signals. Samples will begin shipping in February 2006.

Proxim and NEC Begin Deployment of Large Retail Wireless Network

Proxim Wireless Corporation, a global provider of broadband wireless equipment and subsidiary of Terabeam, Inc., today announced that it is supplying NEC Infrontia Corp., a leading manufacturer of key telephone systems and point-of-sale (POS) systems, with the infrastructure to deploy Wi-Fi hotspots and wireless POS solutions throughout Japan in all of the locations of two large retail chains. These deployments are individually the largest retail wireless networks in both companies’ history.

Opera Releases Mini-Java Browser

Users of Java-capable cell phones anywhere may find browsing the Web easier and cheaper now that Opera Software ASA is allowing anyone to download its Opera Mini application. The official worldwide launch of Opera Mini is planned for January but Opera has quietly lifted restrictions that previously allowed only residents of some Nordic countries and Germany to download the application, a spokesman has confirmed. “The idea is that you shouldn’t have to buy an expensive smart phone to browse the full Web,” said Eskil Sivertsen, a spokesman for Opera.

Cellcom Reports 50,000 i-mode Subs

Cellcom Israel Ltd. reports that it has 50,000 i-mode subscribers three months after launch. Since their i-mode roll-out in September, Cellcom has been adding content, which now includes 96 Israeli websites and access to 80,000 foreign websites. Cellcom said most new i-mode subscribers since the launch of the service use it extensively, although it should be kept in mind that most services are given free during the first months of use.